What’s a fun fact about you? I am the first male Schuetz in at least three generations who is not a cheesemaker.

Why Steve is a big deal: Steve Schuetz has three decades of experience valuing businesses and their assets, and believes he’s walked through more than 2,000 facilities over that time. He has had his hand in a lot of local deals, most recently Golden Gate Capital’s multi-million dollar acquisition (terms were not disclosed) in January of ArrMaz Custom Chemicals in Mulberry. Other recent clients include PODS and the Dental Care Alliance. VRC worked with Vology in its purchase of Bayshore Technologies.

What is it about local deal making that’s Tampa Bay-centric?

We have a large infusion of people from outside of this market so we have people who bring ideas from the northeast, the Midwest and those all meld together with locals. It creates a very vibrant business community. On the business side, that melding of cultures creates very interesting experiences that are brought to businesses here. That’s one of the reasons we do have a very entrepreneurial city.

Over the last few years, we’ve built good market awareness in terms of people knowing us among the major accounting firms who drive a lot of the needs for the work we provide.

What’s one of the strangest things you have ever valued?

Over the course of my career, I’ve valued thousands of companies and one of the strangest was a time-share campsite. That’s where you buy a plot of land to pitch your tent or part of your trailer for one week a year.

What is your best recruiting resource when you need to hire?

Placement professionals at local universities

What’s happening with local M&A now?

What we are seeing in a lot of the companies being acquired is that their financial staffs have a tendency to be fairly thin. Any time these companies are making acquisitions, there’s not a lot of depth in the financial area.

That has reduced the number of acquisitions, and it certainly means they are taking longer than expected to complete.

Deal flow has been a bit off. It seems surprising with so much cash on the sidelines.

It’s surprising but there’s so much uncertainty from tax law to the health care situation to the regulatory environment. People are sitting on it and have been unwilling to make acquisitions at this moment.